Insulated vessels or containers are known in the prior art for housing low or high temperatare materials. One such container, which is adapted to house cryogenic materials, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,548,335 to Remes et al. It comprises an inner metal vessel for housing the cryogenic material and an outer metal vessel which surrounds the inner vessel such that a space is defined between the inner and outer vessels. A superinsulation material is provided in the space between the inner and outer vessels and that space is evacuated to less than atmospheric pressure. The inner and outer vessels are formed having vessel walls of sufficient thickness to permit the space between the vessels to be evacuated without the vessel walls collapsing upon one another. Also, the inner and outer vessel walls are impervious to gases to prevent gases from passing into the space between the two vessels. The outer vessel wall is also of sufficient strength to provide structural and abuse integrity to the container. However, the weight of this container is excessive due to its conrtruction from inner and outer thick-walled structual materials. It should also be noted that it is often times difficult to design and costly to have the manufacturing capability in place to produce a number of thick-walled metal containers of different configurions.
Accordingly, there is a need for an improved insulated vessel which is lightweight and can be easily and inexpensively manufactured in a number of different configurations.